The ‘Worst Possible Approach’ to the Taliban

At a time when President Barack Obamas national security team has decided that differentiating between the good Taliban and the bad is the key to progress in Afghanistan,Tellis is making the case for an alternative strategy.

In his report titled Reconciling with the Taliban? Tellis warns that engaging the extremists in Afghanistan would be the worst approach at this timeand it is destined to fail so long as key Taliban constituents are convinced that military victory in Afghanistan is inevitable.

Imploring the Obama Administration not to panic,Tellis insists that reconciling with the Taliban is both premature and unnecessary for the success of Western aims. Tellis points to opinion surveys indicating that the Afghan public,by an overwhelming margin of 82 per cent to 4 per cent,is still very much opposed to the Talibannot only viewing them as the countrys biggest threat but also desperately seeking the success that ought to accrue from the presence of Western military forces in their country.

Consequently,although the situation in Afghanistan is serious,it is by no means hopelessand can be retrieved through a concerted modification of current NATO strategy,including a return to proper counter-insurgency operations, Tellis adds.

Tellis challenges one of the core assumptions of the new US strategy towards Afghanistanshift from state-building in Afghanistan to mere counter-terrorism against the al-Qaida. He warns that Washington cannot fight al-Qaeda and its allies in Afghanistan and Pakistan without supporting the creation of an effective and responsive regime in Kabul.

Tellis points to the weakest link in the strategic logic that Obamas advisers have developed in their search for an early exit from the northwestern subcontinentoffering more incentives to Pakistan in order to secure its cooperation against the al-Qaida and the Taliban.

Although he does not rule out enlightened transformation of Pakistans national security attitudes,Tellis believes that such a change could only occur over the long term. He therefore affirms that the US counterinsurgency effort in Afghanistan cannot come to depend on the fundamental transformation of Pakistan or its behaviors in the near term.

Tellis concludes that an American strategy for victory must entail hardening Afghanistan in a way that increases the probability of success within the country,irrespective of what choices Pakistan makes in regard to confronting the Afghan Taliban sanctuary on its territory.

(C. Raja Mohan is Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies,Nanyang Technological University,Singapore)